Witty artwork, bottling date clearly stamped on the neck of the bottle, 5/13/13, six days ago!Moderate pour into the new Dogfish/SN IPA glass, clean, golden hue, eggshell white head that lingers for less than a minute, light lacing.

HUGE pine aroma, subtle sweetness, fruit and grass.

Like licking a Christmas tree... This one grabs you by the tongue and slaps you in the face. A real shock to the palate. More pine, earthy, cheek puckering bitterness. Yum. There is lemon in there somewhere... if there are malt notes to be found, I'm not finding them. Alcohol is well hidden.

Carbonation is relatively smooth, not overly intense, which is good because I don't think my mouth could handle it. Goes down nice, to say the least.

After drinking this beer, the thought of it alone will make your mouth water. Any hop junkie will find their fix here.

Appearance: Pours a deep orange color with a 1" slightly offwhite head that dissipates over a few minutes into a 1/8" ring around the edge of the glass

Smell: The aroma does not burst from the glass, but what there is has a sweet, piney smell. There is a light citrus aroma but to be honest it is overwhelmed by the piney character in the smell, with a little bit of malt character lingering in the back.

Taste: The taste is predominantly pine just as with the nose, but there is no sweetness to the taste. There is a little bit of grapefruit and citrus zest character that becomes more prominent as it warms. Really nice balance between the malt and hop character. The bitterness hits fairly quickly and lingers on the palate, but does not overwhelm the subtle hop flavors in the beer.

Mouthfeel: The mouthfeel is very smooth, with perfect carbonation. I can't find any faults with it. It retains head well and lends to a nice creamy texture.

Overall: Really good west coast IPA but to be great I would have wanted the aromas and flavors to just burst out of the glass, which does not happen on this one. Awesome overall though and a beer worthy of it's reputation.